


"What's to forgive?" I said.

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: Blake & Avery Series - M. J. Carter
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Desire, Emotionally Repressed Englishmen, Feels, Imagination, Longing, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Missing Scene, Pining, Things left unsaid, Unrequited Crush, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 13:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19297096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: "I spent half my life here. How can I reproach you for wanting to stay."Afterwards, Blake remembers all the things that weren't.





	"What's to forgive?" I said.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



This is what he should have done: waited until the evening downpour began and slipped into his tent. It would have made for close quarters, but William would hardly have been willing to escape into the cold and wet. No one would have heard them over the drumming of rain on the heavy canvas.

He should have called a rest before they made the push to Jubblepore. He could have said that the immediate danger had passed, that they needed to regroup. William would have been docile with opium, willing. (In point of fact, William had been dazed and faint with blood loss—in no state for anything of the kind. But this is only an idle daydream, so what does the truth of things matter?)

In his mind's reworking of events, Aziz and Sameer, occupied by their grief, would have paid them no mind as he lay down beside William in the shelter of the mango grove while sunlight brightened the horizon. He would have put his lips to Williams ear to whisper softly until William adored him. He had been watching the boy long enough, by then; he had known what to say. It would have been easy. It always was, with the young ones.

This is what he should have done: ridden after him on the road from Bindachal. He would have caught William up in the heart of the jangal, still flush with rage and at the mercy of his wounded Company sensibilities. He would have pressed William against a tree and kissed him until William ceased to struggle beneath his arms. 

He has spent hours imagining this kiss. How it would have left them both panting. William would have gazed at him with dazed eyes, only to struggle anew when he saw what Jeremiah intended. But by then he would have had William’s trousers around his ankles. He’d have taken him as roughly as that kiss, against the gnarled trunk, until they both cried out, rousing all the monkeys in the trees above to a chattering chorus of alarm.

Or he could have waited until those first nights in Jubblepore. Sleeman had seen them locked within the bungalow each evening—who would have disturbed them, under those circumstances, once darkness fell? 

It's easy to imagine. William would have roused as he made his way to the door. “Where are you going?” he would have asked, groggy and accusing.

“Nowhere you need concern yourself with,” he would have said, irritated by the interruption and eager to be about his business. “Go back to sleep, William.” But William, stubborn and petulant, would have made to rise from the bed. In a heartbeat, he would have parted the netting and slid onto the mattress beside him.

"Mr Blake—" William would have said then, only to stop mid-sentence as he laid a finger against William’s lips. William’s skin would by sweaty and feverish beneath his fingertip.

But William would not have been dissuaded so easily. "Where—" He would have tried again, and stopped only when he laid his lips against William’s own. For a moment, everything would have hung in the balance. Then William’s lips would have parted against his—so sweetly—while his protests evaporated like water in the desert heat. 

Silly, to imagine it could have happened this way—with William, no less. With an Englishman especially, such things could only ever be furtive—momentary encounters in a back room or alley, or felt out carefully, slowly over months before each party could be sure of the other. And even then, any connection one forged would inevitably fall apart—whether it took years or merely days—under the weight of discretion and the fear of exposure.

So it could never have happened like this, but for now, he imagines it as though it might have. It would begin slowly at first, tentatively, but then William would moan into his mouth, his fingers fisting in the hair at the base of Jeremiah’s skull, pulling him down. _Impatient and lacking all subtlety_ , he would think, _As I knew you would._ But in the next moment, he would lose himself in the kiss. It would consume him; it would make it difficult to remember to breathe.

It would be an undertaking to undress without making a wreck of the netting, but somehow they would manage it. The sweat on William’s skin would gleam in the light filtering through the muslin windows, and in his mind he pauses to admire it. He never saw William in any state of undress, not once in all those weeks. (Even in the heart of the mofussil, William had been far to proper for _that_.) So his mind is free to envision William as it will. It gives him the sleek contours of a Hindoo statue, a light scattering of hair across his chest and more that begins around his navel and trails down between his legs, which is where Jeremiah’s eyes, and then his mouth and then his hands, follow.

William would spasm and then muffle a cry as the movement jostled his wounds. He would respond at once, smoothing the sweaty hair back from William’s forehead, kissing his face until he calmed again. And once William quietened, he would begin again to tease him with lips and mouth and tongue. William would writhe beneath him. He would make him gasp and beg until neither one of them could withstand the tide anymore, until it rose up and washed them away.

He should have bedded William in Doora. He should have made an effort to fix the sight of him, veiled and with kohl-lined eyes, in his mind. He should have fled with him into the mofussil before they reached Jubblepore. He should have taken William and run the moment Mountstuart was killed—they could have hidden themselves in Burmah, Thibbet, crossed the mountains into China. The Qing Empire had no love for the Company, but then, neither did he.

He should have asked William to stay, that final afternoon on the ghats. It had been as plain as the day that at a word from him, William would have left his commission, left the Company, left the beauty from the levee. But it had seemed a shabby thing to tie the boy to him thus, when it could only lead to bitterness and disappointment where there needn’t be any, or at least any of which he should be the cause. But it is hard not to imagine how it might have been otherwise, as day after day passes, and England’s shores draw nearer.

**Author's Note:**

> So...not quite the happy requited ending you requested, but I'm entirely on board with the premise of your third prompt and fully believe that they get there after the events in one or two more books. Anyway, I always love seeing requests for these two. Hope you enjoy reading!
> 
> \- A clearly totally anonymous author.


End file.
